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in the general elections? In the past, the DUSU poll results broadly indicated the national preference for political parties, but most observers said the contenders this year are too evenly poised.

Social scientist Anand Kumar knows that university elections can impact national politics. “The election results in DU reflect how the students are thinking about certain issues,” he said. “Political parties have realised this and so invest time and money in the elections.” History does seem to suggest that DU students have been on the ball when it comes to political choices.

A look at the results in the years when general elections were preceded by

too made a comeback in DU. In 2003, the Congress’s college organisation, the National Students’ Union of India, or NSUI, won a majority of DUSU seats. This show was repeated on the national scene the following year, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance trumped NDA in the 2004 general elections. Right up to 2007,

continued its impressive clean sweep of DUSU polls. In September 2008, NSUI won three of the four central panel posts in DUSU, and a year later, in the Lok Sabha polls, UPA retained power at the Centre.

Then the trend changed. In 2010, ABVP made major inroads and, barring 2012, won the majority of the union posts, performing so well as to make clean sweeps in 2014 and 2015. It wasn’t surprising that

Kumar, in the backdrop of this history, could be correct when he feels this year’s results will presage the way 2019 goes. Former DUSU president and Congress leader Amrita Dhawan thinks along the same lines. “There is unrest in the student community and we have seen what happened at Hyderabad Central University and at JNU,” she said. “Promises like employment have not been fulfilled by the current government and the youth are not happy. The youth at DU may make their feelings about 2019 known in the student union polls.”

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken, however, isn’t so sure. Said Maken: “It is not necessarily true that the DUSU results will give an indication of the future. DUSU results are based on many factors such as the students’ views on national politics and on how well the campaign organisers have done their work.” He pointed out that NSUI won two of the four DUSU posts in 2017, but didn’t fare well in the Delhi municipal corporation elections.

BJP leader Satish Upadhyay agreed with Maken’s inference: “No, the union polls won’t necessarily predict what will happen in the 2019 general elections,” he emphasised. “They do, however, reveal the concerns the youth have, and these could be taken up by political parties.”

leader AAP leader and MLA Alka Lamba too believes that DUSU is not a reliable forerunner because “money and muscle power now play an inordinate role” in the results. “I am not sure if a fair picture of the students’ mood emerges in such an atmosphere,” she concluded.